Tag Archives: missionary

From deepest Cornwall to southwest China

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YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT you might discover when you stop in a small English town or village. And wherever you halt, you are highly likely to find something intriguing. Camelford in Cornwall is no exception to this. We stopped there to buy meat from Steve Heard Quality Butchers, and their meat is so excellent that we have shopped there twice in the last few days. After our second visit to the shop, we strolled around Camelford and soon came across the Methodist Free Church, which is housed in a rather plain grey stone edifice. A small sign near its entrance advertised that there was an exhibition inside its entrance lobby. Luckily, the church was open, and we were able to discover something about Camelford’s missionary in China.

Samuel Pollard (1864-1915), the son of a Bible Christian Church preacher, was born in Camelford. After commencing a career in the British Civil Service, working in the Post Office Savings Bank in London’s Clapham, he was appointed a missionary to China in 1886. His change of career was prompted by his having attended a conference (The Southsea Methodist conference). In 1887, he set off for southwest China, where he became a Christian missionary amongst the Miao people. In 1891, he was posted to a newly opened Bible Christian mission station in Zhaotong. It was there that he began establishing a Christian movement amongst the Big Flowery Miao (aka ‘A-Hmao’) people, who live in the cold, rugged, mountainous areas of southwest China. In Zhaotong, Samuel married Emma Hainge, and they had four sons.

During the last 10 years of his life, Samuel converted 80% of the 400,000 Big Flowery Miao to Christianity. According to a Methodist website (www.myunitedmethodists.org.uk/content/people/ministers/sam-pollard):

“Sam Pollard worked from a missionary base in Zhaotong but travelled extensively around the province of Yunnan sometimes alone but usually with other missionaries or with Christian converts. From 1897 to 1904 Sam’s missionary efforts was focused on anyone who would listen. He and his colleagues held services which were often in the open air in a town centre or village market place. To gain attention he started off either banging a gong or attempting to play a concertina. Then, in order to have more effect, he blew a trumpet but he always maintained that he had little or no musical ability.  As his reputation spread there was less need for this noisy introduction and simply standing up in a crowded place or advertising a meeting by word of mouth was enough. Sometimes many hundreds of people would attend and occasionally up to 3000!”

Apart from many adventures whilst living in, and travelling around, China, Pollard, who learned Mandarin at China Inland Mission training school at Ganking, is best known for a linguistic achievement. Along with several colleagues, he developed a script for the language spoken by the Big Flowery Miao. It has become known as ‘Pollard Script’. The Methodist website explained:

“‘Pollard Script’ was developed by Sam and several of his colleagues to help the A-Hmao to read in their own language. This proved a difficult task because many of the words use different tones rather than phonetics. He took inspiration from a script that had been developed by a Methodist Missionary working with North American Indians and also adapted Pitmans shorthand to indicate the level of the voice tones. Sam managed to translate much of the New Testament into this script before he died and there have been some improvements since, but it is still known as ‘Pollard Script’ and is also used by several other ethnic groups such as those that speak Tibeto-Burman languages.”

Samuel died of typhoid whilst trying to help a Chinese child suffering from that illness. Returning to the website already mentioned:

“The A-Hmao, Big Flowery Miaos still venerate Samuel Pollard as their spiritual leader. Their deep respect has survived Communism and the extremes of the Cultural Revolution right through to today. And it all started with Sam’s birth in the Bible Christian Manse in Victoria Road 150 years ago in Camelford in Cornwall!”

A recent President of China (‘reigned’ from 2003 to 2013), Hu Jintao, restored Pollard’s grave (at Weining Yi in Miao Autonomous County). He is said to have asked his officials to be like Pollard and support the poor.

Had it not been for the excellence of the butcher in Camelford, we would not have returned to the town. Because the town centre is quite picturesque, we spent some time looking around, and, as luck would have it, we stumbled across an exhibition about a remarkable man, of whom I had never heard.

An isolated Anglo-Saxon chapel

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A FEW MONTHS AGO, we paid a brief visit to Mersea Island, which is off the coast of Essex. While we were wandering around on the island, we spoke with a man, who recommended that we visit the isolated chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, which is not far from Bradwell-on-Sea, also on the coast of Essex. He thought that we would enjoy its tranquillity and the beauty of its surroundings. In early August 2021, we drove beyond Bradwell-on-Sea to a carpark, which is 785 yards west of the chapel known as St Peter-on-the-Wall. The building is about 300 yards west of the east coast of Essex on the Dengie Peninsula, the southern lip of the mouth of the River Blackwater. The chapel stands on a hill overlooking the surrounding coast and countryside.

Winding the clock back to the time when the Romans ruled Britain, we find that there was a fort named ‘Othona’ near the site of the chapel. It was one of a series of Roman forts created to protect Britain from Saxon and Frankish pirates, possibly built by a Count of the Saxon Shore, a Roman official, named Carausius, who died in 293 AD. A Roman road ran up to the fort, connecting it with places further inland. During the 7th century, the Romans having left Britain, an Anglo-Saxon holy man, Cedd by name, landed at Othona in 653.

Cedd (born c620) was one of four brothers. He had a religious upbringing and education in the monastery set up by Saint Aidan (c590-651) at Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumbria. Cedd became a missionary. After successes in the Midlands, he was invited by Sigbert, King of the East Saxons, who reigned in Essex, to bring Christianity into the area. Cedd sailed from Lindisfarne and landed at what was the ruined fort at Othona. He moved north later in life and died in 664 (of the plague) near Lastingham in Northumbria, where he had founded another religious establishment.

Cedd’s first church at Othona might well have been wooden, but soon he built one of stone, of which there was plenty lying about in the ruins of the fort. His stone church is built in what was then the style of churches in Egypt and Syria. Apparently, Celtic Christians, such as Cedd, were influenced by this style. Building a church in the ruins of a Roman fort mirrored that which had been built in the ruins of a fort by St Antony of Egypt. The location of the former fort on the Roman road might have appealed to Cedd as it would have facilitated ‘spreading the word’ inland.

The church that Cedd built used to have a chancel and possibly other parts, as it was part of a monastic complex based near Bradwell.  Cedd’s church, St Peter’s, simple as it was and is still, can be considered the first cathedral to have been built in Essex. It is considered unlikely that the monastery Cedd created near Bradwell survived the Danish invasions. Soon after Cedd’s death, Essex was incorporated into the diocese of London and St Peter’s became a minster, the chief church in the area. When the parish church of St Thomas was built in Bradwell-on-Sea, St Peter’s became relegated to being a ‘chapel of ease’. Services were held three times a week there until at least the end of the 16th century. Sometime after this, the chancel was pulled down; the church was left standing as a navigation beacon; and the building was repurposed as a barn. As a barn it remained until the early 20th century, when the church was reconsecrated and restored in 1920.

The church is still in use. Services are held there under the auspices of the nearby Othona Community, based nearby at Bradwell-on-Sea. At present, services are held on Sunday nights in July and August at 6.30 pm.

We walked across the fields to St Peter-on-the-Wall, which is one of Britain’s oldest still standing and working churches. After some difficulty, we managed to open the one door to the church. We entered the building’s simple and peaceful interior. A colourful crucifix, created by Francis William Stephens (1921-2002) hangs high up on the east wall. St Cedd is depicted praying at the feet of Jesus on The Cross. The supporting stone of the simple stone altar has three fragments embedded in it. One of them was a gift from Lindisfarne, another from Iona, and the third from Lastingham. The altar was consecrated in 1985. Apart from a circle of chairs for congregants and a timber framed ceiling, there is little else in the church apart from a feeling of tranquillity, which can only be experienced by visiting this charming place. The man at Mersea Island, who suggested that we visit St Peter-on-the-Wall, did us a good turn.